I’m slowly but surely transitioning from driving to cycling to the point I’m going to have to change jobs to stop driving all together. While this surely has many health and environmental benefits, I was wondering about the financial benefits. Those of you who have already made the transition, how much have you save by not driving?
Cycling to work, the biggest savings for me were being able to drop my car insurance to “pleasure use less than x Km per week” status. The insurance dropped from $800 a year to $150 a year. Then fuel savings also. However there were additional costs like studded snow tires for winter and increased food consumption.
I switched from transit to cycling, which saves me around $100 a month on the monthly pass we have here in Stockholm. A bit less so since I still occasionally ride transit and those trips now cost around $4 a ride instead of having a marginal cost of 0.
I’m sure I manage to spend similar amounts buying upgrades and gear for my bike so far, but I also save some time for each trip I make since biking is generally faster from where I live. I also get copious amounts of exercise, so I’m still getting out way ahead
I don’t have driving license but I did the calculation.
Tldr: repair + depreciation cost per year are equal to cheapest car leasing per month.
So I have more expensive bike in the range of 2000€ (including rack, panniers and some other stuff). On the second hand market similar bikes go for 1400€ (even older ones in this category), I count depreciation for 10 years so 60€/year (beat this with car).
Repairs/maintenance is around 100-200€ for me but I easily ride 10 000 km/year on it in every condition and surface.
I basically save for new bike per year even with public transport tickets counted in.
I switched in the other direction (cycling + public transit -> car) and have spending some 2600€ on fuel, insurance and other car related stuff, yearly (vs 900€ for public transit fares)
That made sense for me because the reduced commute time (3hrs daily -> ~1h20) allowed me to pick up a part time job teaching at the university I study at (+5000€/yr).
4039.66€ / year
I didn’t switch but I know the cost of owning my truck